Journalled on Tuesday, 14th of March 2023 | Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro: 28 degrees, hot, sunny, and slightly overcast.
An excellent hot, sweaty and stuffy Tuesday.
When I started working out about a year and a half ago, I did seven or eight exercises; now I do between 12 and 15. The time that I have allotted for working out is almost not enough anymore.
This is progress, serenity, and well-being in what you do. Even if I start the morning unenthusiastically, by mid-morning I am already productive, and by the end of the day I am highly productive and happy. I know I’m giving a lot of attention to exercise, but finding the proper exercise that makes you feel good is a natural game-changer.
In my experience, starting to exercise regularly marked the beginning of my whole change. It was the first step, the first change, and from this fundamental shift in mindset, other changes followed automatically.
I feel more secure, and new ideas appear out of nowhere that I never would have thought possible. This is also related to walking. I have liked to walk since I was a very young child, around age seven or eight.
My parents, brother, and I lived in a middle-class semi-detached house with a small front garden and an enormous back garden that backed onto fields and woods, which eventually led to the canals.
From my earliest age, I remember my friends and me playing in the street, the fields, the woods, or even fishing in the canal two or three kilometres away. From a young age, I felt an urge to walk.
My grandparents on my mother’s side lived in a small neighbouring village about four to five kilometres from where we lived. My relationship with my grandmother was much closer and more affectionate than with my mother. I would go religiously twice a week to visit and stay with my grandmother and grandfather.
Once during the week, either on Tuesdays or Wednesdays, depending on what my grandmother was cooking for dinner, all her food was good, and I loved it.
And every Sunday, we would have lunch together and watch Formula One. At this time, Ayrton Senna was racing for McLaren and doing well. This was my Sunday, every Sunday, no matter what; it could be sweltering hot, torrential rain, Sleet, or a snowy Sunday with my grandparents.
After some time, my mother began to feel jealous when I disappeared every Sunday to spend the day with my grandparents. As I got older, taller, and stronger, my mother refused to give me bus fare to go to and from my grandparents so that I would walk.
And even if she gave me the fare, many times, most of the time, I would save the money and keep it for myself and walk there and back from my grandparents’.
I have always preached the benefits of walking, but only now, at 56, do I know its real value. This is something I want to instil in Yasmin before I die. Walking is movement; movement keeps us alive.
Exercise is movement, and it keeps us alive. The truth is that any form of exercise, no matter how intense, keeps us well and alive and helps us live longer. Thank you for the movement, the exercise, the changes, and my new future that is slowly appearing and taking shape.
Yasmin arrived later in the afternoon. She did functional training on the beach, returned, and showered. We played one game of chess before bed. She beat me with a brilliant checkmate. Sometimes, I feel I am underestimating my daughter and need to see more of what she can do and is capable of, because she surprises me more and more.
In bed by 11 p.m.
Thank you.
Thanks for reading my blog. Check out my other posts and share your thoughts in the comments.
Richard
